What should I know about PvE servers

Last night leveling my monk, and this morning leveling it again, I'm getting ganked by high level flyers at the rate of once every 10 minutes (usually concentrated in pockets of misery). I've played since vanilla on a high-pop PvP server where there was a lot of opposite faction, but leveling has never been this terrible. So I decided to shell out the $25 for a server transfer.

Is there anything I should know about PvE servers. I've heard terms like "flagging", but I don't know what that is or how it happens. Besides flagging (for PvP I assume?), are there any differences to know about?

There are no differences except you are not PvP by default and must flag yourself if you wish to enter PvP combat. There are some actions that can auto-flag you, but unless you turn the flag on, you won't remain in PvP:

- Attacking an enemy player that is flagged (they will appear yellow from a distance and red up close)
- Healing or buffing a friendly pvp-flagged player
- Attacking a PvP NPC
- Entering a PvP zone like inner Tol Barad or Wintergrasp

Doing PvE content like a random dungeon or raid will reset your flag back to unflagged, or 5 minutes of non-pvp combat in a non-pvp zone will return you to an unflagged state unless you manually toggle on your flag.

Attacking an enemy player that is flagged (they will appear yellow from a distance and red up close)

Red if you're pvp flagged, yellow if you aren't, regardless of distance.

Also taking flight path drops pvp flag immediately if you didn't turn it on yourself. Most common way to get pvp flagged in pve realm is outdoor bosses like Sha of Anger where aoe'ing in an area with pvp flagged enemies in it will attack them and also get you flagged.

Oh, and it's /pvp to enable it.

Never going to log into this garbage forum again as long as calling obvious troll obvious troll is the easiest way to get banned.
Trolling should be.

There are no differences except you are not PvP by default and must flag yourself if you wish to enter PvP combat. There are some actions that can auto-flag you, but unless you turn the flag on, you won't remain in PvP:

- Attacking an enemy player that is flagged (they will appear yellow from a distance and red up close)
- Healing or buffing a friendly pvp-flagged player
- Attacking a PvP NPC
- Entering a PvP zone like inner Tol Barad or Wintergrasp

Doing PvE content like a random dungeon or raid will reset your flag back to unflagged, or 5 minutes of non-pvp combat in a non-pvp zone will return you to an unflagged state unless you manually toggle on your flag.

As for the AoE thing, I believe Blizzard made it so that you can not be forced into PvP combat with indirect AoE attacks back in Cataclysm. Now if you use a Cleave-like ability and there's a PvP player around to be hit by it, you will get flagged for that but not for an ability like Hurricane.

"There is a pervasive myth that making content hard will induce players to rise to the occasion. We find the opposite. " -- Ghostcrawler
"Almost every time I have gotten to know a critic personally, they keep up with the criticism but lose the venom." -- Ghostcrawler
I hate these casual Fridays ruining it for real Fridays.

Well I think that all falls under attacking (or being attacked) by a PvP NPC. It goes without saying.

No, you can be flagged even if you don't aggro anything, or even go into combat, just by crossing a boundary.

"There is a pervasive myth that making content hard will induce players to rise to the occasion. We find the opposite. " -- Ghostcrawler
"Almost every time I have gotten to know a critic personally, they keep up with the criticism but lose the venom." -- Ghostcrawler
I hate these casual Fridays ruining it for real Fridays.

As for the AoE thing, I believe Blizzard made it so that you can not be forced into PvP combat with indirect AoE attacks back in Cataclysm. Now if you use a Cleave-like ability and there's a PvP player around to be hit by it, you will get flagged for that but not for an ability like Hurricane.

Holy. Freaking. Crap. You just blew my mind. I did not know they changed this.